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This year is Coral’s 20th birthday and although I would love to reminisce and tell embarrassing stories about her during her childhood, this year is a little more special. From this point forward, she will be getting birthday cards addressed to her as “Mommy”! Yep, that’s right Coral is expecting her first child in December which will make me a Grandmother! So, to my beautiful daughter that is about to become a mother, I wish for you a year full of surprises and blessings! This next year is going to be a great one!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY !

I just wanted to take a minute today to wish my readers a safe, happy and fun day of celebrating our nations independence! I am fortunate to live in country where I am allowed to speak my mind and where we are all considered equals, regardless of race or gender. The United States is a great nation and I am proud to be a United States citizen! Happy Fourth of July!

Today is Shelby’s 12th birthday! I can’t believe this incredibly spunky, goofy, and loving child is mine! She has more energy and enthusiasm in her little finger than I have ever had in my entire life!

I had my cell phone service thru a major carrier for over 10 years. As my older girls have grown and gone out on their own, they have gotten their own plans and I was left all alone the plan I carried. Since I was already “out of contract”, I started shopping around for my other options. I ended up going with a “pre-paid” plan and I haven’t looked back or regretted it since.

I did this for several reasons. I needed unlimited calling since we no longer have a home line and my younger children use my phone to call their friends and I use my phone to call my mom every day. Not to mention the fact that I use the phone for everyday household stuff (dr appointments, etc). I was tired of being signed to a contract. I hated getting bills that varied every month, sometimes by a few dollars, sometimes by a few cents. I wanted a nicer phone without the contract.

I ended up with a Samsung phone that looks VERY similar to a Blackberry. I paid $20 for that phone. Free shipping. My monthly rate for unlimited talk, text and web is $45. No contract. If I want a newer phone, I just watch the website for the one I want to go on sale (they have LOTS of sales at GREAT prices!). There is no “asking for an upgrade” or seeing how much “credit towards a new phone” I have. Oh, and I even got to transfer my same phone number over to my new phone! It only took 30 minutes to become active!

I am so happy I looked waited and looked around before signing another contract!

19 years ago I gave birth to a beautiful, talented, amazing, loving, caring, soul that I named Coral. I have had the privilege of being her mother…. watching her grow and learn…. fall and get up again….. fail and succeed….. question and get answers…. cry and laugh….. get hurt and be loved. As much as I have taught her, she has taught me as well.

One of my favorite quotes, from the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”:

“For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. And, if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

I have been a member of Vocal point for a few months now and it is definitely worth the effort to sign up. It is FREE! In the past month I have gotten free trash bags (the Hefty ones with Frebreeze scents), a free bag of the new marshmallows made specifically for S’mores, a free coupon to try the new Bounce dryer bar, free coupon for Fresh Express Salads and a few other goodies!

I HIGHLY suggest you register today because the rumor mill is saying there will be a GREAT NEW offering on Tuesday!

Pretty lazy Friday around here - it is just too hot to do too much these days! So after cleaning up around the house, the kiddos and I ventured out to run errands. First stop was Blockbuster so they could swap out their movies (for free!) from our Club Wannawatchamovie memberships. If you missed my post on that, you can read it here: http://occupiedlife.com/2011/07/18/summer-school/

Then we stopped at Winn Dixie where I scored 4 boxes of Snackwell cereal bars (2 boxes of Peanut Butter and two boxes of Chocolate) and two boxes of family sized Pillsbury brownie mix. Before coupons & deals the total was : $17.94! After deals, coupons, etc. my total spent is 0.99! YEAH! Ninety nine cents! How did that happen….. here is what I did (I used two transactions for this):

Transaction #1

bought two boxes brownie mix (on sale bogo and had a .40 cents off coupon)

bought two boxes Snackwell bars (on sale for $2 each and also had a .75 cents off coupon for each one)

total before coupons and sale prices: 11.36 * after coupons and sale prices I paid $4.49 out of pocket AND I got a $3 catalina coupon back for my next shopping trip

Transaction #2

bought two more boxes Snackwell bars (on sale for $2 each and also had a .75 cents off coupon for each one)

total before coupons and sale prices: $6.58 * total after coupons and sale prices I paid $2.50 AND I got another $3 catalina coupon

Total out of pocket for both orders was $6.99 AND I got the $6 in catalinas for the next time I am at Winn Dixie. I did not try to use the catalina coupons today because sometimes if you use a like coupon for your order and those items are in the order, you will NOT get another coupon. Not sure if I explained that clearly or not but basically you usually cannot “roll” catalina coupons because they won’t print other ones for you.

Winn Dixie also has the new Cocoa Puffs Brownie Crunch cereal on sale for $2 each box and a few weeks ago there were .75 cents off one box coupons that came out in the newspaper. I got four boxes a few days ago for $1.25 each but just thought I’d put that in here so you can snag that deal too if you venture over there.

After that excitement we headed over to Cold Stone Creamery to use a $20 gift certificate that I got a few months ago over on LivingSocial.com I paid $10 for the $20 gift certificate and so all four of us got HUGE portions of ice cream with one mix in each! Total there was -0.04 cents! LOL! Not kidding, the total was NEGATIVE 4 cents! I just let them keep the four cents.

Then we headed home to settle down in ice cream bliss while some homemade pizza dough is getting ready in the bread machine for dinner and movie night later today. Since I had all the ingredients on hand (flour, yeast, etc) and I use leftover spaghetti sauce for pizza sauce, the only real cost to me for making a pizza is the cheese which I try to get on sale for $1.50 or less per 8 oz bag. Even cheaper than the $5 pizza deals at the chain pizza places!

About Me

I am a mom of four wonderful children and Gammie to two beautiful grandchildren! I have three girls (ages 25, 22, and 15) and one son (age 10) who was diagnosed 7 years ago with Autism. I am a former paralegal, a member of Mensa and currently a stay-at-home-mom in Central Florida. I enjoy finding new ways to help my family stretch every dollar and make it count! If you would like to contact me, CLICK HERE